New Papers Reveals US Threatened to Spy On New Zealand (moved from ATSNN), page 1

Private papers of New Zealand ex Prime Minister David lange, show that the US threatened to spy on New Zealand and no longer trusted the country. New Zealands decision to ban Nuclear ships led to the breakdown and expulsion of New Zealand from the ANZUS security treaty with Australia and the USA. Other documents included in Mr Lange's paper were the 1985 86 report of the Governmen Communications Security Bureau, labelled Top Secret Umbra along with documents listing countries and agencies that new Zealand was spying on.

www.abc.net.au
The United States threatened to spy on New Zealand during the height of their row over nuclear issues and the breakdown of their military alliance, according to papers published today.

Among the documents is a letter from former cabinet minister David Caygill, written on March 21, 1986, in which he describes how then US ambassador Paul Cleveland had asked him if he realised what was at stake in the dispute.

"I asked him what he meant. He replied trust. I asked him what he meant by that and he said that until now the USA, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand had had a unique relationship. 'We have not spied on each other. If you go ahead with your policies we will not be able to trust you'.

"I took the clear implication from his remarks that if our relationship with the US deteriorated further, then the US would no longer feel any inhibition in conducting intelligence gathering operations against us," Mr Caygill wrote.

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Both Australia and the USA were highly critical at the time of the New Zealand stance on Nuclear powered ships and nuclear armed ships. It was a particularly active time for New Zealand with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and other anti nuclear activities.

It would be a foregone conclusion that New Zealand would no longer obtain the same level of trust from the USA after it had made it's stance clear.